[mythtv-users] HDHomeRun

[Tom Lichti]

Rich West wrote:
> I'm at the point where I want to add HD capabilities to my SD setup. 
> Two out of our three sets are HD capable (already 16:9).
>   
If the lone SD only frontend is a full Myth frontend, it will scale the 
HD source to SD size, with the right setup.
> My BE is a fully populated MicroATX system (no more slots :( ), which
> got me to thinking of the HDHomeRun as an option (the Hauppauge 1600
> would be good IF it were supported under linux. :( ).
>
> After reading past posts on the list and looking at the device itself
> (on the web page), is it as easy as it claims to be?  That old phrase of
> "If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't" rings through my head
> every time I come back to it.  But, from what I have read, a number of
> people are using it.  What are people's experiences with the HDHomeRun
> and does the antenna you choose have an impact (I'm sure it does, but by
> how much)?  Is the HDHomeRun better/worse than getting an internal HD
> tuner card?
>   
I think better, since as you said, no driver issues, really. All you 
need is a relatively current version on MythTV. Current SVN works, as 
does .20 fixes, along with SVN trunk rev 12618. Anything other than that 
and you are playing with fire.
> Combined with MythTV, as I understand it, you plug an HD antenna in to
> the HDHR, and you plug the HDHR's ethernet cable in to your switch. 
> Then, on the MythTV side, you set it up to point to the IP of the HDHR
> and you're good to go?
>   
Pretty much, yes, with the right version of Myth (see above). I have an 
antenna on one tuner for OTA HD, and my cable line on the other for SD 
QAM channels. The type of antenna depends mostly on how far you are from 
the transmitters, and the transmitter power. I am pretty far away from 
most of the stations (80+ miles) so I have a largish ChannelMaster 4228 
antenna.
> The limitation would be the FE for display, then, right?  I've got a
> shuttle with an AMD64 Sempron 3000+ and 512MB of RAM (the systems are
> *virtually* diskless) which, from what I can gather, may or may not make
> the cut for HD...
>   
Should be ok with those, definitely if you have nVidia cards and use XvMC.

Tom